i can wait forever
by Lady Shaye
Summary: One day she will die for him, and that's okay, because it's Stefan. It's always going to be Stefan.


A/N: So, this is my first Steferine piece, and I hope you all enjoy it! Happy holidays to you!

Rating: T

Pairing: Stefan/Katherine

Summary: One day she will die for him, and that's okay, because it's Stefan. It's always going to be Stefan.

Disclaimer: If I owned TVD, Stefan wouldn't even have to _think _about choosing between Elena and Katherine. There would be a clear winner.

* * *

i can wait forever

–Simple Plan, "I Can Wait Forever"

* * *

"_You know, there was a—there was a moment. Just a moment, when I thought things could be different."_

"_How so?"_

"_You're right. I did love you. And it was real."_

—Stefan and Katherine in Katherine's dream, "By the Light of the Moon"

* * *

Their first kiss is the night after a ball—her first ball in Mystic Falls, actually. She feels like Pepelezka* after the church service, becoming a pretty princess when her prince kisses her goodnight.

He takes her up to her room after the ball—she dismissed Damon earlier when he stared at her too wide-eyed and lustily, eyes not as dark or mysterious as Stefan's, Damon's gaze just openly _screaming_ "love" (she's always liked a challenge, and Damon's just too _easy_)—and kisses her briefly at the door, but only when she compels him with a sly whisper in his ear after he presses his lips to her gloved hand and it's not enough for her. (Nothing's ever been enough for her, but maybe he will be one day.)

"You're beautiful," he whispers after he kisses her on command, his hand still gently lain upon the side of her curls. They're frizzed to maximum by the gentle muggy quiet southern night, but he doesn't seem to notice or even mind, and she's never had anyone take her imperfections like that. With not even a blink, or an acknowledgement. It makes her…hesitant. It surprises her. It makes her smile.

"I know," she murmurs back, and leans in for another kiss, which he grants her. "Fight me," she says against his mouth, his pupils overly dilated at her compulsion. "Fight for control." His eyes close, and he obeys. She needs him to _battle_ her.

This one turns more passionate, as his hand now fists in her delicately-fixed hair and she grips his own stiff, almost _crunchy_ hair in her hand. Their tongues battle, and it's probably the most she's fought for something in a long while, to kiss him like this. He's fighting her for every inch, taking back two steps for every one he allows her to have. It's…enlightening, and it's exciting. Finally, she tires of making him hold his breath as they fight for dominance and she constantly wins (thank you vampire indefatigability), so she releases him.

He gasps, breathes in the air, gulping, like she does with fresh blood, and offers her a small smile—still compelled, still pretty, still easy, still hers. (For now, but she doesn't know that this will ever come to an end, because she's usually always gotten what she wants, right?)

She smiles back, slowly, knowingly, and he reaches for her and kisses her again, this time of his own accord (though he's still compelled). She doesn't refuse him, simply because she wants it just as much.

He's putty in her hands.

* * *

The deception is, in a word, regrettable. She doesn't want this. She doesn't want to leave him here, lying in the dirt, unconscious and dead-looking, but she can't take him with her. A hungry new vampire is not useful or safe—_for him_, her mind whispers, because even now he is all that she cares about other than herself—to take where she is going.

She hears (remembers) that Bulgaria is nice this time of year, and she thinks (knows) that he will survive Turning without her. Damon may be reliant on those that he loves (and that will never get him anywhere except rock bottom in life) but Stefan can be independent when he chooses to be. He might have a few dark years, or decades, or centuries, but eventually he will survive it. He will forgive her when she comes back to find him, too.

But a newborn vampire is no good whilst on the run from Klaus, and she forgot that for a while. She forgot what it was to be hunted. She let herself be a free, careless, happy woman in love, and that's cost her the man—_barely more than a boy, really, and she hasn't learned anything_—that she loves. (For now.) And Damon, of course. And he's a sweet little thing, as loyal as a puppy and as sensitive as a stake wound with vervain poured on it, but he isn't Stefan.

He isn't the one that she loves. _It's always going to be Stefan._

She sighs, whispers a few choice words to Stefan's still body (corpse, but only for now) and steps away. It's time to move on.

Maybe back to her homeland, but just for now. She'll be back.

Hopefully sooner rather than later.

* * *

It's the seventies and she's wearing bellbottom jeans (good Lord, even now she knows that they look ridiculously silly) and she sees him in San Francisco climbing into a Love Bug with a bunch of teens around the age he was Turned at. She's frozen still, because even though she always follows him around when she can help it, she didn't schedule_ this_ meeting—and she always fixes the time and place. But this seems to be Lady Luck's bitchy exception.

And Good Lord, what if he sees her?

But he doesn't, and she notices that his eyes aren't as bright as they used to be when he was young and alive and seventeen and _hers _(and he was enough, and will be again one day). He crams himself into the car, laughing where it doesn't reach his eyes, and she turns away so that her hair hides her face. It wouldn't do for him to accidentally catch sight of her. She smiles as he turns away, but it's a bitter smile, tired and alone still, running still, missing him still.

She buys a Love Bug in the nineties when she's lonely and missing him and remembering the one time she didn't plan to see him, but fate put them in each other's way anyway.

_Love means _never _giving up, after all._

* * *

He kept a picture of her. Perhaps it shouldn't mean so much to her, but it does.

* * *

She plays it cool with Stefan because it's all that she ever knows how to do with him (pretend that she's in charge, even when she knows that she's not), because it's the only way she can feel secure around her (he's always made her feel weaker). Touches him lightly to make him shiver, gives him good (or bad, depending on how she feels about him and Elena's relationship) dreams about her and what they used to be, sticks him in the tomb with her, gives Damon the cure because he needs her to, and runs away when she has to.

She knows that he'll give up his life to save his brother's, and that's what kills her. Because Damon is good, better than he pretends to be, though not as good as he (secretly) wants to be, but he's good. And he deserves another chance, one that Stefan will give him. But is it worth Stefan, is it worth a decade of his life and possibly—probably, knowing how she understands Klaus like prey understands its predators—more?

In another life, when she had a heartbeat and happiness and a family, she might have said yes.

But love has made her selfish, and all that she wants is for Stefan to be safe—even now, when he hates her and loves her descendant, and he won't look her in the eyes as he devours bag after bag of blood. Klaus just smiles, and she remembers his cold eyes watching her across the years while she ran and ran and ran from something that she barely understood and hardly understands now, and she hates him down to his very core. He might be lonely and sad and sometimes emotionally vulnerable, but he's a bastard too, and that's what matters the most about him to her right now.

And Stefan doesn't deserve this.

They leave her, and she runs after giving the cure to Damon—she doesn't know whether she would have or not if Stefan hadn't pleaded with her with his eyes—and ends up crying in his old Chicago apartment, brushing her fingers along his "list" of victims, penned into the wall of his hooch stash hiding place. She traces the list, memorizing his penmanship. It hasn't changed from then, and it hasn't changed from his 1864 handwriting either.

"_It's okay to love them both. I did._"_ I __**do**_.

She cries silently, secretly, in that hidden safe place, knowing that Klaus won't bring Stefan to Chicago for a long while. She's safe, for a few months, and after that she'll get away. As far away as possible from that evil hybrid son of a bitch.

* * *

She calls Damon, gives him information, gives him everything that she can give while she's good enough to give it. God knows these bursts of goodness only come every once in a while—usually after she stares at a picture of her family for long enough, or maybe a picture of Stefan…even rarer, a picture of him and her together.

She's stuck in a phone booth in Chicago, knowing that Klaus and Stefan could be miles or minutes away, and she can't bring herself to move, to pack, to leave. She can't even stir. Because she catches his scent as they walk by, oblivious, and her breath catches too.

He's the same. Smells like blood—more specifically, like human blood—but the original scent in the same: vanilla conditioner, lemon and iced tea, clean warm soap. Pureness, wholeness, goodness. Things that she can never have or hope to be.

One day she will die for him and his hair and his scent and his kind words and his soft, soothing voice and his wonderful forgiving eyes that have been so cold toward her these past few months.

One day she will die for him, and that's okay, because it's Stefan. _It's always going to be Stefan._

* * *

She pisses off Klaus, big time, and moves the hell away, getting as far from him as possible.

So she says, apparently, and so they believe.

In reality, she lives in a small apartment in a college town. She works as a waitress at a small coffee shop, having served her fair share of people before and also knowing what it's liked to be served, and she gets decent tips. It's a good life, one that she might have been satisfied with if she didn't know that Stefan and Damon are struggling to keep their precious little Elena alive. (She should probably care more about her descendant, but she really just doesn't give a fuck about her doppelganger.) She lives about two hundred or so miles from Mystic Falls, which is only a three hour drive if she's lucky.

(She's usually lucky, or have you just not figured that out? This is the girl that outran Klaus for five hundred fucking years thanks to good luck and strategy.)

It's a sad day when she hears of Elena and Stefan's wedding. It's a small, simple ceremony, but she's got contacts in Mystic Falls, and they know everything. (Don't ask. You really, really, _really_ don't want to know the favors she now owes, but it's so worth it to know about Stefan's daily life.)

No, make that more than just a sad day.

It is the first day that she cries since Stefan turned himself over to Klaus so many damn years ago. She bites her lip and fights the tears, but they come anyway. Because he is gone. He can't be hers anymore, because her many-times granddaughter stole him from her and they're married and her chances are gone.

She wants to come to the wedding, even if it's only just to tease Elena or watch from a distance, but she doesn't. She resists her urge to cause trouble.

Because she told him that she'd change for him, in that stupid fake dream (but _she_ meant what she said). And this is her first step, letting him go (for now, and maybe even forever if that's what it takes).

* * *

Two years later, he ends up at her door, bleeding and tired.

No questions. No exclamations. No sarcasm. Not even any words at all. Just…nothing between them, no conversation, period. She just gives him a blood bag (she doesn't fresh feed much anymore, unless it's been an especially long day or she has a rare date, though the latters are mostly just so she _can_ indulge because God knows the only romantic interest she'll ever have again is Steffie here) and gives him her queen-sized bed for the night.

She waits for him to fall asleep and creeps out of the apartment, finding her way to the local hospital for more blood and the coffee shop that she still works at for coffee and muffins. She tiptoes back in as quietly as possible, and watches him sleeping for a few moments. She wants to crawl in there with him, and sleep on his chest and feel his arms around her (the man is a fucking _compulsive_ cuddler, she swears to God, and she doubts that he's changed since that morning he thought she was Elena) and never let go until he wakes and pushes her off of him (_that's inevitable, sweetheart_, she hears Klaus's voice, the stuff of her occasionalmeaningalmostevery freakingnight nightmares, whisper in her ear).

But she's changed, just a little bit, so she just walks over to her small uncomfortable-as-hell couch (but it's goddamn pretty, so screw you for being uncomfortable) and sits and watches a rerun of the seventh or so generation of Degrassi. It seems to be the same as ten years ago: drugs, sex, betrayal, pregnancy, and random breakups that make no fucking sense at all whatsoever, she swears. Normally, she doesn't need much content for entertainment, but this is fucking _ridiculous_. Freaking unbelievable.

It's also fucking _addictive_, because she's watching the same rerun for the second time and it's two o'clock in the morning when he finally wakes up and wanders aimlessly into her living room. She just offers him a grim smile and a shot of tequila alongside hers. No explanations necessary, and he doesn't offer her one; he just takes the shot and sits down next to her, heavily and sighing and sad. (He takes her shot, too, but she doesn't yell at him.)

She has a feeling that Elena would ask if he was okay, and demand an explanation, but the difference between her and Elena (and between her and Stefan, as she remembers from that stupid little dream that he forced on her that gave her just an ounce of hope for five fucking seconds) is that she runs away from trust. Even now, she still doesn't want him to trust her enough to tell her what happened.

It's the one barrier keeping him from judging her solely on herself. If he trusts her, he can choose whether or not to love her based on nothing but her personality and her heart. And if he says no…

She may be a BAMF, but even she can't take that kind of rejection from the man she's loved for around two hundred years, give or take a couple of decades or so.

"How did you even know where to find me?" she eventually asks, during the commercial of their fifth Degrassi episode together.

"Didn't," he shrugs. "Bonnie did a location spell for me."

Ah. So the witch is alive, at least.

She almost asks him about Elena (and the mysterious lack of a ring on his left hand) but he interrupts her with a snide: "This show sucks, by the way. Your tastes got a lot worse."

And ten years ago, she would have said, "Well, hell, I love_ you_. Who fucking knew my taste sucked."

But she is smarter and maybe even just a little bit kinder now, so she doesn't. She just sits there and takes his little bashing of her personality because she deserves the goddamn attack and she knows it, and she is silent when he stands without explanation and walks away. She's almost afraid that he won't come back, though she doesn't even want to admit that fear to herself.

It is rare that she admits anything registering on an emotional level, especially just to herself. Much less to anyone else.

He returns five minutes later with a blood bag from the kitchen fridge, and he hands one to her silently as he resumes his seat next to her. She's changed the channel to Discovery, and they watch without a sound as lions take down zebras, a narrator describing the scene quietly. She turns up the volume, and wonders about metaphors.

And she thinks that maybe he was always the quiet, self-hating lion, and she was the merciless, overconfident zebra that was convinced she was a lion. A zebra hunting lions, her chasing Stefan. Ha.

(There's probably something deep in there, but she doesn't want to care enough to search for it, so she makes herself stop from doing it.)

* * *

There are no enlightenments. He tells her nothing, barely says a goddamn word, and she gets tired of it. She's washing his laundry—lazy bastard hardly moves from the couch except to get blood or food or a change of clothes or something—and finds the ring in his jeans pocket. It's golden but pretty plain (she kinda expected him to go all out with Elena and everything) and flecked with blood and there's _S&E_ engraved upon the outside, directly where his eyes would rest if he looked at it.

She doesn't ask why he took it off and put it away, she just keeps on washing his clothes, setting it in her "useless junk" kitchen drawer—and no, there is absolutely _no_ symbolism in that, so fuck off. She just puts it away, is all. Hoping that maybe he'll talk soon, maybe he'll tell her someday soon.

* * *

He asks her—out of the blue, watching TV like they're so prone to do after a day of her going to work and him doing whatever (she doesn't even _want _to know) he does (probably daydreaming of Elena, _gag_) in this apartment—if she's ever done something truly terrible. "I've killed people," she says, deflecting, because she's the bad guy in this, remember? (Not as bad as Klaus or anything, but…still.)

"You know that's not what I mean," he responds, almost snarling it, holding his bourbon bottle and swaying slightly in his sitting position on the couch, tipsy and maybe even nearing the half-drunk point. (And she _does_ know.) "Something else. That hurt people you _really_ cared about, not just a mindless fuck and feed."

For once, she lets herself be honest with him. Trust is a dangerous thing, but she's tired and hungry and she just wants the goddamn man to keep talking (his calm voice has always soothed her, even when he's angry and hurt)—and if that means answering a question she'd rather not, then oh well. "Yes," she says quietly, looking down at her hands in her lap and ignoring the shark episode on the TV (she's left it on the Discovery Channel, because he seems to enjoy this nature stuff, these cold hard facts that prove that they're not the only predators out there, even if they are still the worst). "Of course I have."

"Like what?" he asks, wanting to know so desperately and so softly, and she lets herself be _her_ in front of him for the first time since 1864, when she compelled him (the first and only time) into believing that she had never been weak in front of him. Screw it all. It's not like he can hurt her more, can he?

"I left you and Damon by the side of the road," she says. "Dead and unmoving and with hardly a chance of survival in this new world of conflict and cravings and stupid bloodthirsty tendencies." She laughs, without humor or any emotion at all, really. "I got Pearl killed, probably. I mean, I think it was me. And she was my friend, despite what you always thought of me. I did care about her.

"And my daughter. I had her as a teenager, barely more than a young child, and she was taken away from me before I could even get the chance to truly recognize what I was holding in my arms. I loved her so much, for just those five moments in my life, and when those minutes were over, I was a wreck. For months. For years, even. I was banished to England for dishonoring my family, and I embraced it. Because I needed the shame. I needed the disgust. Because I had given up my baby, however reluctantly. I let her be taken away." She sighs. "I never got to be a mother, and for that, I think I'll always hate myself. It's a terrible thing. She probably had a happy life, or at least a bearable one, but I'll never know, I suppose. I don't even know what her name was.

"And my family." She keeps looking at her hands. She may be a different person, but she still doesn't want to look up and see—what? Pity, satisfaction, cruelty, agreement, sympathy, what?—something strange and scary and _unfamiliar_ in his eyes. (Cruelty or satisfaction simply does not belong on Stefan's face; and she's never experienced pity or sympathy or agreement from him, or from anybody else, for that matter.) "I let them die. I caused their deaths. I ran from Klaus, I Turned, I killed his chances of his hybrid side being unleashed for another five hundred years. And he killed my family because of it. I went home to Bulgaria and found them dead, my home burning, my life ruined and over until 1864." She feels a strange burning in her eyes, but she hasn't cried for months and months, nearly two years now, and she won't let it start now. She swallows back the tears and the obstacle growing steadily in her throat. "Where I ruined you and Damon. So, yes." She laughs, bitterly as always. "I've done many terrible things. Very many."

He says nothing for a long while, and she doesn't dare look up to see his expression. What might be on his face might lead to her mask cracking, her façade breaking and unleashing these things she's fought to keep hidden and dormant and even supposedly nonexistent inside of her (God knows they've all at one point thought her to be a demon, or at least emotionless).

"Humanity is a vampire's greatest weakness. No matter how easy it is to turn it off, it keeps trying to fight its way back in. Sometimes I let it," she repeats her words from the past—she never forgets a moment she's shared with him—and hopes that this time, he'll understand, and at the same time, that he won't.

Those deaths still hurt her. They torture her, at night, with the sound of Klaus's velvet voice whispering in her ear as her mother's dying screams that she never really heard pierce her all the way to her skull. She just doesn't show it.

His hand covers hers without a word, warm and unfamiliar and somehow still comfortable, and he turns up the volume on the shark program, and they watch it together in silence.

They seem to be doing that a lot these days (probably because they have nothing left to say anymore).

* * *

Elena comes searching and finds him about two months since he showed up at Katherine's place. She's still wearing her wedding ring, which is a beautiful diamond that he once vaguely promised to Katherine, ages and forever and a day ago (1864 and beautiful and he was _enough_ for her). She has not aged a day since she Turned, which Katherine expected but didn't look forward to. Now they're gonna look the same for forever, dammit. Something she isn't anticipating with the highest amount of joy, believe it or not.

Stefan is still asleep, and it is early morning, and Katherine answers the door to her doppelganger.

"He came to you, didn't he," Elena says. And they even sound the same, fuck it all.

"He's sleeping," is her oh-so-suave response. Damn it, she hasn't kept up her verbal sparring techniques. Damon would have a field day with her if he were here.

(Which makes her hope that he isn't waiting in the lobby or something. Because if he is, he's probably laughing his ass off right now at her oh-so-witty rebuttal.)

"I want to see him," Elena says determinedly.

Their hair is still the only thing separating them, though Elena's is pulled up into a tight ponytail and Katherine's is free in untangled, hip-length chocolate curls. (She's been working on growing out her hair for a while now, and Stefan seems to like it long because he hasn't said anything, but he also sometimes runs his fingers through it before he leaves for bed. He always does it the whole way: from her roots to the hip-length tips, fingers soft and almost dancelike—like a ballerina's fingers, graceful and slow and sweet, almost sentimental.)

"He's sleeping, I said," Katherine repeats.

As though repeating anything ever got _this_ doppelganger to listen. Honestly, even _she_ wasn't so stubborn as a teenager (which _this_ girl still kind of is, mind you, because Elena hasn't even been Turned for five years), and _she_ fucking popped a _kid_ when her daddy told her to stay away from that boy with the shy smile and dark hair.

(A simple precursor for Stefan, in all honesty, now that she thinks about it.)

"I want to _see_ him," Elena says, and she's repeating herself too, and they both look fucking annoyed—and on two identical faces looking at only each other, it's freaking scary, probably. Thank goodness her neighbors aren't around to witness this. Mrs. Macintosh from 7C would probably have a heart attack, poor woman.

"Like I give a shit what you want. Let him sleep. Whatever happened between you two, it's fucked with him enough."

"At least I'm _trying_ to fix it," Elena retorts. "You let him spend one hundred and fifty years missing you, hurting over you. At least I'm here to get him back."

Katherine smirks at her, looking much stronger than she feels. As usual. "I left Stefan alone so he could be free, and I could become _better_ somehow," she says, for once truthful. "Stefan…he deserved much better than me. And he definitely deserves much better than you. At least I chose Stefan and stuck with it. Let me guess, the thing between you two? It's messed up because of you and Damon. Isn't it." It's not a question.

If vampires could blush, Elena's face would be burning. She swallows thickly, and that's all the proof that Katherine needs.

"At least I chose." She sighs, nonchalant and sounding carefree, taps her fingers on the doorframe, red nail polish tap dancing the exit music for her little doppelganger descendant, graceful like a ballerina and deadly like a vampire feasting upon one of its own. "Get the hell away from my apartment."

"Tell him I'm staying two blocks away, at the Holiday Inn," Elena says over her shoulder, half turned away, almost resigned (except Elena never fucking gives up). "In case he wants to see me. And I haven't changed my phone number. I'll answer, anytime, day or night. Just…tell him, for me."

Katherine doesn't want to. She sighs, runs her fingers through her curls, and looks at her feet as Elena walks away. She's indecisive. Would Stefan forgive her if she didn't tell him—if she "forgot"? On the other hand, would he choose her if he did, in fact, receive the message?

Then she remembers why she left in the first place. To change for him, like she promised so long ago during her dream. To try to be a better person. A long time ago, someone told her that vampires never change, that they stay the same no matter how many centuries come to pass simply because they don't know anything else—and if they change, it's never permanent. It's usually never for the better, either.

But she has changed. A hundred years ago, or five years ago, or even six months ago, she would have left that message behind, here on her doorstep, and pretended she'd never heard a thing, never seen Elena at all. Stefan might have never known. But she's supposed to be a better person now. And she knows what Stefan wants—no lies, even if they're hurtful truths instead.

So she goes inside and waits for him to wake up.

He staggers out of the bedroom (they share it now, but only because that couch is fucking uncomfortable, and they never touch anyway so thank god for queen beds because he flinches sometimes when she accidentally touches him, he fucking _flinches_) to find a note on the kitchen counter.

* * *

_Stefan,_

_Seriously, I don't think people—even vampires—should be able to sleep that long. I guess you were having good dreams. (Yes, I really do _guess_. I don't actually know for sure. I make a habit out of staying out of your dreams now, in case you were wondering. Though you shouldn't have been, because if I were in your dreams, I'd make sure to leave my mark. You'd definitely remember me being there.)_

_Went out shopping. (Seriously, though. I can't get over it. You fucking slept forever.)_

_Elena came by. Don't know how she found me, you, us, whatever. But she did. She wants to talk to you. She's staying two blocks away at the inn, and her phone's the same number. She told me to tell you to call her whenever, she'll always answer._

…_she _seems_ sorry._

_Before you ask, I have no judgment. Just don't do anything you'll regret later in the future._

_Lo_

_Katherine._

* * *

She crosses out what was almost _love_ (it's always been almost love) and comes back fifty-seven minutes later to find Stefan sitting on the couch, the landline phone in his hands as he stares at the technology. He is bent over, hands resting on his legs as they cradle the phone, staring at it unsurely, the letter beside him on the couch.

"You gonna call her?" she asks as she starts putting away the groceries. The bananas go in the bowl, the cereal goes in the cabinet, her emotions go to that faraway part of her brain that doesn't process feelings anymore (so she convinces herself, at least), her heart goes dormant, and the milk goes in the fridge. (All routine. Every single part of it.)

He shrugs, not even looking up at her as she enters the living room. "Don't know yet. Thinking about it."

And because she's better than she used to be, she just sits there and watches Discovery Channel with him (monsters watching animals, as he would probably say wryly if they said much of anything anymore to each other) and waits for him to make a decision.

And because she's better than she used to be, she doesn't offer up any opinions when he finally types in the numbers and waits for it to ring.

And because she's so much goddamn _better _now, she just walks out and refuses to cry in front of him.

(And maybe it's because of that, but it's probably more because of the fact that she just can't stand to hear them talk, even if it's on the phone and just one-sided conversation, and the only bits she'll get to hear from Elena will be thanks to supernatural hearing that she _can't_ block out.)

* * *

He walks out of the apartment for the first time in what feels like forever the next morning. She watches him walk out, still wearing that same pair of blue jeans and gray hoodie that he was wearing the night he stumbled in, bloody and staked in a couple of places. The bloodstains are gone from the hoodie now, and his hair is no longer uncombed and he's had a shave, and he definitely _looks_ better insofar as much as she can tell, but does that mean anything, is the real question.

She doesn't know him much anymore.

He doesn't come back for seven hours. (Not like she counts the hours or anything, but still. She measures the time in Discovery Channel specials.)

He returns in rumpled clothes and messy hair, and her heart sinks, because damn it all, she remembers the post-sex Stefan look. She _gave _him that look, for Christ's sakes. She says nothing about it, however, and only offers up the gray yoga pants and white t-shirt she gave him his first night here. The ones he's been wearing for a while now. He takes them, puts them on, gives her a halfway grateful, halfway confused smile, and sits to watch Discovery Channel with her.

She gets up, walks away, doesn't say anything. He doesn't argue with it.

* * *

Ten days later, he does. "You don't talk to me anymore," he says.

She barks out her harsh, bitter laugh, the one she's perfected over the centuries, only this one's not fake. It's real. "We don't ever_ talk_, Stefan. We barely even say anything more than two-word sentences to each other per day, and that's usually, 'Buy coffee.' 'What kind?' 'The Italian.' 'Okay.' That's our basic dialogue."

"You know what I mean," he retorts, frustrated. He rakes a hand through his hair, and she wants to run her fingers through his hair too but she lost that privilege a long time ago during a roadside one-side goodbye. "We still _stay_. We sit next to each other and watch Discovery together. Now you're taking extra shifts at the café. Why aren't you doing that with me anymore? Did I piss you off somehow?"

"Yes," she snaps. "Yes, you pissed me off. Look, Mr. High and Mighty, _I _left you for your own good. _I _gave you over a hundred years to adjust. _I_ always knew which brother I wanted. _I_ let you crawl into my apartment, bloody and practically mute, and _I_ didn't ask for an explanation, and _I_ didn't say a goddamn word when you went to go visit your ex, who just so happens to be my great-times-a-million granddaughter. _I_ let you go, and _I_ let you come straight back, again without an explanation. And _you_ expect things to be just the same? Forget that."

"You said it was fine for me to go," he responds just as angrily. "You said you had no judgment."

She sighs, tucks her hair behind her ear. "You dumbass," she mutters to herself, "you still don't know how to read between the lines, Stefan. You still don't know women, or me."

"No, I guess I don't," he says, but his words are no longer angry. Both of them are deflated, words toneless and empty, and he sighs. "What the hell happens now?"

Shrugging, she asks, "Are you going back with Elena to Mystic Falls?"

He hesitates. "No."

"Then where you are going to live?"

"I was hoping here would be a nice answer."

And because she'll give him anything, and she'll let him use her whenever he wants, and one day she'll probably end up dying for him, she just nods heavily and wanders back over to the couch. And they watch some special documentary about moon jellyfish. And she doesn't hear a goddamn word of it because he puts his arm over her shoulders two minutes into it.

They stay like that all night, and she debates about staying home from work in the morning, simply so she can keep his arm around her.

Does he even notice how frozen she is around him?

* * *

Apparently, a temperamental Original is not a good enemy to have.

Or, so she says to Stefan as he kneels down beside her. She's covered in blood, and the dawn is rising, and no one is coming to save them. They're still in the rural Virginia area just outside of her college town, and they're lying in a freaking cornfield or some shit like that. There's a stake in her chest that Klaus left there, and it's not even an inch from her heart. She can't move, or it's the end of her, forever.

This is the torture that Klaus left her to deal with, along with a warning: "Cross me again, Katerina, and next time, I'll let you burn. Slowly. Repeatedly. Until you're begging for death, and I won't give it to you then."

His words still echo in her ears.

Stefan nudges the stake out, slowly, tentatively. Afraid for her life. She wouldn't have believed that a few months ago, but it's true. He cares about her, and her continued existence, now.

"Not so good for each other, Klaus and me," she chokes out, laughing bittersweetly. "Ouch. Be gentle, Stefan. Be gentle with me."

"I never have been," he mutters, concentrating and being brutally, bitterly honest at the same time.

She hesitates. "I know," she whispers.

"You still let me come back," he murmurs as he edges the last bit of the stake out of her chest. She sits up, heaving breaths and poking the rapidly healing wound around her heart hesitantly. Her curls are covered in a thin sheen of blood and she pulls them back into a hasty, messy bun. Her blue t-shirt is stained red now, for the most part.

She smiles. "Yeah. Guess I did." It's not a happy smile, but it's the closest that she's come since he came back into her life.

Then he stands and reaches a hand out to her. She lets him help her up. "Said I'd die for you," she whispers in his ear. "And you came back for me so that I wouldn't. Guess you proved yourself too. Proved you care about me." She gives a harsh laugh, and he stiffens as she breathes into his ear. "Now you get to prove you love me."

And then she's gone, racing for her apartment.

This is his decision. This is his challenge. This is his choice, his fight to win, his chance to prove his love for her.

She's there, waiting, hanging around, hoping he'll show up.

Three days.

Three goddamn days.

There's a knock on the door, and the tumbler of bourbon in her hand slips from her grasp. It falls despite her quick reflexes—she's too frozen to bend down and catch it in time—and the glass shatters on the tiled floor of the kitchen. She has no friends. No neighbors. No people that would come to see her. No one that she should be expecting. No one but him.

She gathers up what's left of her bravery, her courage, her inner strength—the only parts of her left intact enough to deal with him if he decides to choose something else, something other than her, and dammit, she _will _survive if he says no, won't she? _Won't she?_—and walks toward the door.

She opens it, sees those gray yoga pants and that white cotton t-shirt, meets his grateful hoping eyes, and she breaks out into the first decent truthful smile that's crossed her face in five hundred years.

* * *

In the end, she does die for him. But that's okay.

Because it's Stefan. _And it's always going to be Stefan._

And she's been waiting forever for a chance to die for him. It's always been worth it.

The last sensation she feels is his hand in hers, his lips pressed to hers, his words in her ear, his eyes on hers.

The last thing she does is breathe his name and smile.

* * *

"_What is love to you?"_

"_Never giving up. It means waiting, even if you have to wait forever. And I will. Stefan, I will wait forever._"

—Stefan and Katherine, "By the Light of the Moon"

* * *

*Pepelezka is the Bulgarian version of Cinderella, who met her prince after a church service. You can find stories about her online.

* * *

The "fake dream" Katherine refers to is from a deleted scene off of "By the Light of the Moon." You can find it on YouTube.

* * *

A/N: I hope you all enjoyed this. I loved writing this piece very much, it's important to me. It's the first time I've ever really tried to get into Katherine's head, and I liked doing it very much. Happy holidays!


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